Syrian President Shara and two ministers from his cabinet were the targets of five assassination attempts last year, which were foiled, The Jerusalem Post reported, citing the United Nations Office for Combating Terrorism.
According to unofficial information, there were many times more such attempts. Allegedly, the target was primarily Shara, who is “going after his neck” in particular by members of the terrorist Islamic State (IS), which some time ago controlled parts of the Syrian territory. Their supporters, who consider the Syrian president to be the leader of the anti-IS coalition, attacked the Syrian authorities six times in February alone.
According to the letter, a Turkish source said that MIT, which played a key role in establishing a new government in Syria, asked MI6 for “more support” last month. Information came from Syria that the relevant cooperation was discussed at the end of February during the visit of the British special envoy for Syria, Ann Snow, to Damascus, where she was hosted by the Syrian Deputy Minister of the Interior, Abdalkádir Tahan.
Turks, British and Syrians share information
A high-ranking source in the Syrian security service confirmed the Turkish request for British help, saying that it came after “one very risky incident”. He added that since then MIT, MI6 and the Syrian secret service have continuously shared information.
MIT thus identified a three-member team some time ago that was preparing “remote” bomb attacks. Thanks to this, the Syrian agents were able to prevent an “immediate attack”.
According to the newspaper, Ankara cares a lot about Šar. For her, it is, among other things, a guarantee of relative peace in Syria, which should enable the Turkish authorities to return Syrian refugees to their homeland. There are over 3.5 million of them in Turkey after 14 years of civil war in Syria, and regardless of billions of EU contributions, they represent a great economic burden. At the same time, Ankara was able to agree with him on the suppression of the Kurds, whom it considers terrorists.
Shara, still under the fighting name al-Julani, was the commander of the al-Nusra Front, an offshoot of the al-Qaeda terrorist movement in Syria. In 2016, he severed relations with this group and went his own way. He became the leader of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, and at the end of 2024 he headed a coalition of Islamist rebel factions that overthrew the Syrian dictator Bashar Assad after several days of fighting.
The West supported Shara in his efforts to reunify and restore the 26-million-strong Syria. He canceled not only most of the sanctions originating from the Assad era, but also the restrictions against HTS.
